Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, the civil rape trial of former President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in front of Judge Lewis Kaplan.
E. Jean Carroll, a journalist and author, has accused Donald Trump of raping her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman Department Store in Manhattan sometime between the fall of 1995 and spring of 1996. Trump has denied those allegations, contending at various times that he “did not know her” and she “was not his type.”
The case has been winding its way through the courts since 2019. The first complaint filed by Ms. Carroll contended that Trump had defamed her by falsely denying her accusation of rape. In 2022, Carroll filed a second complaint, which sought to hold him directly responsible for the rape. It is the rape case that is going to trial on Tuesday.